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displays a separate details panel for each image for in-depth image info, version history, notes, etc

relies on a basic WinPE 2.0 image with only stock add-ins = easy to build and maintain

To begin, you'll need a working WinPE 2.0 with WMI, Scripting, XML, HTA packages installed.Networking needs to be functional also.

There is a ton of help on this site and others for getting that far.I really recommend the PXE or RIS/WDS bootable WIM setup.

Add a line in the startnet.cmd to create a mapped drive to your image location, example:net use z: \\server\imageShare

In the image share location, create a new directory for the imaging HTA to use, example:z:\winpeThis path is hardcoded into the HTA and you may need to change it for your situation, see notes in HTA itslef.

Referring to the screencap above and using the example mapped drive z:, here is a description of how things should work:

radio button entries are created from shortcut links in each category subdir

radio button names are created from description field of shortcut

details for each image are linked from an .htm file with the same name as the .gho target

When creating shortcut links, be sure to use the mapped drive path instead of a unc path.

The quick and easy way I have made the details files is saving from Excel as .htm. Name it the same as a .gho and it should display, sometimes takes a little experimenting to make it look right. An obvious upgrade would be to use a nice spreadsheet control or something, but I took the simple way.

We'll be using ImageX for more images pretty soon and this interface should be easy to adapt for that also because the buttons are only command lines actually.

Hope this can help some people. I'm no web designer or code engineer, so there is a lot to be improved but it is meeting our needs currently.

Attached Files

p4ntb0y

Posted 30 March 2007 - 05:00 PM

p4ntb0y

Member

Member

237 posts

Joined 14-February 06

Nice this should help some people out.

What about adding an option for images to be on a USB Drive weather they ghost or wim. This will cope with situations where you have no network conectivity an engineer could boot an UFD and load the image by USB disc

keythom

Posted 13 April 2007 - 07:03 PM

Here's an embarrassing attempt at a graphic explanation if it helps any.I'm sorry for any harm to your eyes.

Please let me know if you try this and if you have any trouble, I'll try to help.

For the imaging to launch, you'll need to put the ghost files into \program files\ghost8\ or set the location in the HTA. There is a comment at the top with the line number for that.

I'll update when I have some imageX incorporated.

For testing I map the drive to the ghost images location as it is set in our PE image and launch the HTA on my normal workstation. I did work for a long time using some .NET classes and was very disappointed when I ran it on WinPE though.

Stratuscaster

Posted 14 April 2007 - 09:24 AM

keythom

Posted 16 April 2007 - 11:12 AM

keythom

Member

5 posts

Joined 26-October 05

In WinPE 2.0, I get the Access Denied error when starting an HTA from a non-system drive like a mapped drive or removable media device.
Try launching the HTA from a location on the system drive, should be X:.

wikky80

Posted 21 April 2007 - 10:58 AM

tombtek99

Posted 30 April 2007 - 09:23 PM

tombtek99

Member

1 posts

Joined 30-April 07

Great Stuff!! I am working on something similar. A couple things I added which might be helpful to some folks.We have about 8 locations and customizing the paths for each of them was a pain. So I called an IPCONFIG > x:\ipconfig.txt in startnet.cmd. I used a read in the txt file to map the drive based on the dns suffix (or you could use ipaddress ranges, etc). That made sure the mapping to Z:\ was consistent.In the fat vs thin image arguement, we chose to go with 2 very, very thin xp images (Apic & Pic) with extensive post image scripting for machine specific customizations (laptop/desktop/workstation, Lenovo/HP, SP/MP, Raid/NonRaid, IDE/Sata, etc). I used the machine type wmi script from the bdd (2.0) to idenify the machine type as a text file. I put a hook on the end of my imagex.bat to call copy.vbs which copies all of the machine specific software and drivers based on x:\machinetype.txt[to the local PC before it reboots and starts sysprep. I have a call in my sysprep that launches the drivers and software installs.We use a modified wizard.hta from December's technet in our WinPE and the net result is a KISS boot disc that is location and machine independent. The tech just clicks a button to image the machine either up, down, or up and down, and walks away until the XP mini-setup. Three screens there and then give it 5-15 mins (desktop vs laptop) and the unit is ready for data migration. We can't use accounts in sysprep (to automate the mini setup) and I don't think our users (read engineers) will be ready for automated data migration any time soon, so that is a far as we can go with automating our process. Hope this helps.

Stratuscaster

Posted 01 May 2007 - 02:01 PM

Stratuscaster

Newbie

Member

31 posts

Joined 05-April 07

In WinPE 2.0, I get the Access Denied error when starting an HTA from a non-system drive like a mapped drive or removable media device.Try launching the HTA from a location on the system drive, should be X:.

No dice - still get "Access is denied" when launching from x:\ghosthta - perhaps if I knew where you placed the HTA files?

zorphnog

Posted 02 May 2007 - 07:15 AM

zorphnog

Advanced Member

Member

427 posts

Joined 25-July 06

I've found that for some reason you always have to specify the full path of the file for mshta to execute properly. So even if you are in the folder where the .hta file is located, you still have to type the full path.

dbensing

Posted 03 May 2007 - 09:13 AM

dbensing

Member

1 posts

Joined 01-May 07

First of all - Thanks for all the great info in this thread...

I have created a Booting USB flash drive with a nice little Boot Environement. I am currently setting this up for a Ghost environment, but will probably be switching over to an ImageX environment in the future. I can get this to boot and work on my Dell D610s, Optiplex 280s, etc with no issue. It will not work on my D600s. The whole thing loads, but I get a script error when it trys to populate the Image lists. It is because it doesn;t load the network drivers right. It should work with the B57win32.inf driver like the other Dells that work, but it doesn't. I have tried putting my own drivers into the PE Image, but it doesn't seem to work. The 610, and 280 are using what appears to be an existing B57 driver in the PE environment. I guess the 600 doesn't like it (I saw all this from looking at the PE Boot Log and seeing what drivers load). Here is what my build scriptslook like:

pushd "C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\"

if not exist "c:\winpe_x86" (

rem Prepare the build environment

call copype.cmd x86 "c:\winpe_x86"

rem Copy the Windows PE source files from the image to the build environment

Any ideas? I know about Mounting and applying the Drivers, then Unmounting, but that didn't do anything for me either... I am using the Vista Resource Kit as reference here. Just out of things to try and could use some help.

Bumbastik

Posted 28 June 2007 - 06:59 AM

idanlerer

Posted 28 June 2007 - 12:03 PM

idanlerer

Member

4 posts

Joined 27-June 07

Thanks a lot.
I think this is also a resolution problem sine the button are very big.
What do you think ? any option to change, I don't understand why the button are bigger then the print screen in this post

Posted 29 June 2007 - 08:21 AM

zstokes

Posted 29 June 2007 - 08:29 AM

zstokes

Member

6 posts

Joined 06-April 07

This is a neat tool! I inherited a GUI made using AutoIT tools, but the fact that this dynamically creates radio buttons is a much nicer solution.

I am having an issue though - When I click start to launch ghost, it just hangs. Anyone else have this issue? I have installed all scripting, WMI, XML and HTA components. It DOES run fine from a full WindowsXP system...